


Before We Took A Breath

by friends_call_me_wobbly_hands



Series: Out Of Time [4]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, Child Abuse, Conditioning, Gender-Neutral Chara, In a sense just a bunch of episodes ok?, Multi, NarraChara, Origin Story, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Swearing, Underfell, Unethical Experimentation, Violence, a slightly de-edged underfell, actually that is all you need to know, asgore fucking up, bad labs, different angsty skeletons, different cheesy fishes, everyone fucking up, neutral pronouns are still A Thing, or maybe same? all those skeletons look so alike, the opposite of a redemption ark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14055318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands/pseuds/friends_call_me_wobbly_hands
Summary: As everyone proud enough to boast having a big family tree, the story had its origins.Unlike what usually happens with a family tree, even the story itself agreed to forget those origins.It was a hasty job, done in a hurry. And it was not done well. The ends were left hanging loose, and the ties were cut, and the roads were blocked. Maybe it was for the best.But sometimes the forgotten things have their own tale to tell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> oooh boy, if you thought 11 Days was dark then you probably will be shocked.  
> Not as terrible as some Underfells I saw, though. So take that.

...It was night. Dark, stuffy, cold, and completely sleepless. Just as the night before. Just as always.

Sans closed his eyes.

His room reeked of dried grease, rotten food, damp cloth and negligence. He could tell where everything was without looking: a thoroughly broken lamp he had never really repaired; a crude cardboard he never got to paint; messy clothes thrown into the corner from long ago when he still had the energy to dress down for the night; empty packages and wrappings strewn all over the floor; mold slowly consuming a piece of a bun he dropped a few days ago and kept forgetting to pick up. Such a mess. Such a disaster.

Such a terrible excuse of an authority figure.

Papyrus was sleeping just behind the wall, but it could as well be fifteen miles away. Sans could hear no sounds coming from his room. A soundproofed wall was certainly one of the best ideas the guy had: they both had always been loud snorers.

An old bitter misery resurfaced at the thought of Papyrus, and Sans squinted until it drowned again. Ah. Who cared? It would be over so soon.

He turned over, feeling the familiar springs bite into his bones in the same old places. At least this stayed over the years: the feeling of this bumpy old mattress. Sometimes he almost believed himself when he said he simply wanted some things to never change. It was an excuse, and a poor one. Everything changed, and rarely for the better.

What changes did _they_ go through? What were _they_ shaped into, before they could wake up, open their eyes, take the first breath? If the Sans from eleven years ago saw the two of them now, he would probably just leave his little brother at someone’s doorstep. Maybe the kid would live a better life, this way. Maybe whoever taking care of him wouldn’t fuck up things as epically as Sans did himself.

He sighed, rolling over and lying on his back. His hand hung from the mattress and brushed over something slimy. He picked it up and tossed somewhere without opening his eyes to see what it was, or where he was throwing it.

He was glad he never gave Papyrus an excuse to enter his room these days. Always stumbling out at the first call, always keeping it locked. He was almost sure he had a duplicate of the key lying around somewhere, but Papyrus would probably never find it. Sans himself never did.

If Papyrus ever got inside, though… well. He already thought that Sans was a mess. There was no need to prove him right. No need to fall even lower in his eyes. If Sans still had room to fall, that is.

Still on his back, he carefully straightened his posture, putting his hands to his sides. Yeah, like this. Papyrus did not have the key, sure, and maybe it was for the better.

Papyrus was sleeping just behind the wall, he reminded himself, but it could as well be fifteen miles away. Papyrus lived in the same house, but it could as well be fifteen hundred miles away. They were not really a family anymore, had not been for such a long time. They never touched each other save for the times Papyrus was dragging him to his station or shaking him awake after an unapproved nap. They never talked to each other save for the times Papyrus nagged him and Sans spit some of his bitterness into his arrogant face. When had it come to this?

Ah, nevermind. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter anymore.

Sans slowly relaxed, feeling like the whole mountain Ebbot was resting casually on top of him. Finally. Finally, he told himself. He felt so fragile. He felt so tired.

He let out a soft breath and gave up.

The darkness around him was all-consuming, ever-present, so vibrant and dense and full of itself that it almost seemed alive – only it was as far from alive as it could be. That was the darkness that existed before the Word was spoken and the Light burst through; before the Maker, whoever they were, even dreamed of the world they were going to create, once.

Now it was rare, such ultimate lack of light. They had got lamps and fires and fireworks to fight it. Even the darkest night could boast at least a single star; and in the deepest caves there were insects that sparkled like stars as well, stars fallen and broken to pieces but still alive. In the corners and under the beds you could find moths with soft-glowing eyes; and if you rolled a fallen tree over, you would see that death could give out light, too. The only place you could find that darkness was under your eyelids, just a moment before you were born. Not that many people remembered it. Maybe it was for the best.

But it didn’t matter, really. Not tonight. Tonight, the darkness was too much, and the light was no more – it was gone, forever. The word was never spoken, the Maker decided to do something more rewarding.

Tonight, Sans closed his eyes to never open them again.


	2. Chapter 2

It all started with darkness; those hundreds of years ago.

They all walked uphill, in pairs. Parents clutching their children; lovers holding each other; the remains of the families, once big and powerful, trying to stick together and save what little was left.

And failing, failing, failing.

They kept walking, higher and higher on that rocky, unsteady path: nothing but bare lifeless rocks all around, nothing but bare lifeless sky above.

They walked in silence. Sometimes a child would cry out, or a scream of pain and anguish would ring in the dense air, echoing in the rocks, but then all sound died down, and there was silence again.

They kept walking, like the animals Noah had gathered to save from the flood, the clean mixed with the unclean until there was no chance to tell one from another. And what were they, if not a herd? What were they if not beasts, rounded up and pushed forward to a refuge that felt more like a prison, with their unlucky brothers left behind to perish?

They walked up, only to descend afterwards, to fall lower and lower and lower till they found the bottom, till they took a taste of the pomegranate seed and stayed there forever.

Humans marched after them. They didn’t look like winners. Maybe there could not be winners at all in a scene like that. They kept silent, too. No sneers, no laughs, no threats aimed at the backs of the retreating mass of monsters. Maybe it was mercy. Maybe it was pride. Or maybe they didn’t want to waste their time on something that would be gone and forgotten so very, very soon; something that almost had never existed. Something lost in time for good.

A pair of monsters led the silent march. If not for the crowns on their heads, if not for the eyes on their backs, they would be clinging to each other too. But they couldn’t. They were the remains of a powerful family too, the remains of a _royal_ family: its youngest members. They couldn’t show weakness. It would cost too much. And so they walked on, steady, heads held high, like it was nothing but a little pleasant walk. Their hands were locked and tense, so tense that their claws were almost drawing blood. Sunlight played on their crowns.

They walked on, slowly, pair after pair, towards the dark cave in front of them. It was going to be their cage for another millennia, only they didn’t know it yet. They didn’t know if they would make it out alive or lose hope and perish in the dark. Some of them would, while others wouldn’t, but there was no chance to tell the difference between the two.

After the last foot stepped inside the cave, the whole herd stopped, and all the heads turned back. The humans tried to urge hem further in, but the monsters did not move an inch. They stood. They watched. They kept silent.

The humans understood that there was no way to make them step back. They understood that even if they started killing them off, the beasts would rather die on the doorstep than give in. So they backed off instead, and the seven mages stood in front of the lines, their faces as parched and lifeless as the whole world around. Chants were shouted, and a wall of dim, opaque mist rose, cutting off the entrance for good.

The monsters stood. The monsters watched. The monsters did not make a sound.

Suddenly, far above their heads, a noise came in, like the beginning of an earthquake; louder, louder, it tumbled down as stones fell before them, as if the Barrier was not enough, as if the mages did not want to rely on magic only and decided to cut all means to escape for them.

The King turned to his wife, and their hands, locked together, went even tenser. Above there was a single tiny hole left, and all the eyes were locked on it, because there was just a tiny piece of cloudy blue there, a piece of hope, a piece of light.

But then something moved in the way of light. With a rumble, the last rock fell into place, cutting off the light. Darkness fell like the top of a casket closing.

Monsters were never afraid of the dark. Slowly, one after another, they turned their backs, not looking up anymore; slowly, in complete darkness, they lit up their magic and held to each other, and walked down, hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder.

Many monsters would survive the day. Only a few would get a chance to meet the new millennium. They would see a lot until then.

They would see plague come and take lives, they would see their friends and families crumble from the lack of sunlight, medicine, food, hope. They would see monsters exhausted to the point of not being able to move, and people trying to look away because they’d be close to this point themselves. They would remember monsters that were perfectly well one day and could barely breathe the next day and would not wake up on the third. They would remember whole families, whole species dying out because they needed the sun, they needed the sky and they needed air and space; flower monsters, bird monsters, bat monsters – first the elders, then the children, and the adults last, who spread the dust of their loved ones and could only hope that there would be someone to spread theirs. They would see the eyes of those who believed all hope was lost: empty and lifeless, just like the piece of sky closed off by a stone. They would see the fighting, the mobs and gangs and mafia, and people disappearing overnight and no one daring to speak of them anymore, or to ask where they went. They would see lots of things, but, no matter what, they would never remember anything that would be worse than the first slow descent into darkness.

And so, just like this, the monsters entered the Underground.


End file.
